MIT Subject of Wrongful Death Suit

Published 8:00 pm, Sunday, January 27, 2002

The family of a student who committed suicide at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by setting herself on fire filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Monday accusing MIT administrators and counselors of negligence.

Elizabeth Shin, 19, of Livingston, N.J., died in April 2000 in her dormitory room. She had received treatment through MIT's counseling and support services for more than a year before her death.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

The school has denied any wrongdoing.

In the lawsuit, Cho H. Shin and Kisuk P. Shin claim school administrators and health services counselors failed to properly deal with obvious signs of mental illness shown by their daughter, who had repeatedly threatened to commit suicide.

On Feb. 12, 1999, Shin tried to kill herself by taking an overdose of Tylenol with codeine and spent a week receiving inpatient psychiatric treatment at a hospital, the lawsuit said. After that, she repeatedly cut her arms and wrists, the Shins said.

The Shins claim MIT officials should have notified them of their daughter's worsening mental health.

"If they made even one phone call to warn us what was going on, Elizabeth would be with us now," Kisuk Shin said Monday.

Shin's mother said her daughter never showed symptoms of depression before starting at MIT. But MIT officials last week said that Shin had experienced serious emotional problems since high school.

"Many people at MIT had offered as much help and support as they could to her," MIT lawyer Jeffrey Swope said in a statement Friday, when the family announced plans to sue.

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Since 1990, 12 students have committed suicide at MIT. A report issued by an MIT committee in August concluded that the university needs to make "significant changes" in its mental health services.